Interesting To See How Electronic Medication Ordering Can Reduce Errors. Seems It Really Works.

Electronic prescribing through computerized physician order entry averted 17.4 million medication errors in the U.S. in a single year, according to researchers publishing in the Journal American Medical Informatics Association.

The authors analyzed data from 2006 to 2008, including the American Hospital Association's 2008 electronic health record adoption database to estimate the reduction in medication errors that they said could be attributed to CPOE.

"Processing a prescription drug order through a CPOE system decreases the likelihood of error on that order by 48 percent," the authors wrote. "Given this effect size, and the degree of CPOE adoption and use in hospitals in 2008, we estimate a 12.5% reduction in medication errors, or 17.4 million medication errors averted."

Putting a hard number on the results of any health information technology on quality improvement is a challenge--and research on the effects of HIT are often ripe for debate.

A breakdown of the events found that 53 percent were associated with medication management systems. Of the systems identified in such events, computerized physician order entry systems were mentioned the most (25 percent of the time).